[BITList] Fwd: Lloyd's List: Send to Colleague

[Michael Feltham]

Begin forwarded message:

From: enquiries at lloydslist.com
Date: 26 January 2009 07:49:17 GMT
To: mj.feltham at madasafish.com
Subject: Lloyd's List: Send to Colleague


The below article was sent to you from Mike Feltham (mj.feltham at madasafish.com 
) with the following message: I thought you might be interested in the  
article below.

Sunshine in my heart
Monday 26 January 2009

IT HAS been said, and it cannot be said enough for me, that engineers  
and not environmentalists are the folk who will sort out the problems  
of man-made climate change. Environmentalists just shout a lot.  
Engineers go off to their workshops and make something useful.

I thought about this the other day when I read in the latest BIMCO  
Bulletin of a joint venture between the Japanese giant NYK and Nippon  
Oil to introduce solar power to ship propulsion.

They are not just talking about the project. They are pressing ahead,  
and already there is a large NYK car carrier aboard which there is a  
huge array of solar panels plugged in to the ship’s systems, reducing  
the electrical load on the conventional power plant.

I guess it is slightly ironic that it is a car carrier, which for all  
I know is employed to transport thousands of the sort of vehicle that  
would have sandal-wearing Liberal Democrat councillors in the Borough  
of Richmond upon Thames retching into their muesli** from one end of  
the earth to the other. You will doubtless recall that Wallenius- 
Wilhelmsen’s ‘concept’ sustainable vessel, which is winning  
environmental prizes around the maritime world, is also designed as a  
car carrier.

But when you think about it, the design of such a vessel sort of lends  
itself to solar power, with an upper deck about the area of an  
aircraft carrier. Additionally, the accommodation for the crew, who  
presumably will spend many happy hours trimming the panels into the  
sun and freshing off the accretions of salt, is conveniently adjacent  
to the arrays, so they won’t have to walk too far.

You would have a lot of trouble installing them on a bulker or tanker,  
where the weather deck is occasionally swept by green water. I guess  
there would be other types of ro-ros and ferries, or even cruiseships,  
where environmentally conscious passengers would queue up to sail in  
company with such evident sustainability.

Solar power is coming a long way fast, showing that where there is a  
demand, the engineers move fast to satisfy it. It was only a year or  
so ago we were writing about some tiny solar-powered excursion boat on  
Sydney Harbour, and here we are writing about giant “partially  
propelled” pure car carriers operated by some of the biggest shipping  
companies in the world.

We must not over-egg it, of course. These are early days, and it could  
be that the solar panels are only managing to power up the chief  
engineer’s electric toothbrush. But next week it could be the bridge  
toaster, then the galley range, and then the internal lights. A few  
months hence and the chief engineer, his teeth gleaming, will be  
disconnecting the turbo generator as the sun shines brightly; a year  
of two from now there will be 10% of the propulsive power solar  
generated. It is incremental, but progress really is being made.

** Apologies for my parochialism, but this London borough has  
announced a thoroughly wicked plan to penalise people with large  
families (and who require suitable cars) by making them pay more to  
park in their mean streets.

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